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Comment by yilugurlu | Hacker News Reader

I am genuinely curious, why Jeep/Chrysler makes the worst decisions in the car industry over and over again. Is this incompetency or this is really how they run their business?

I don't know how many years I have known these brands, but they are constantly in the news regarding bankruptcy. I am aware of the history with Mercedes, followed by Fiat, and now with PSA; it feels as though they are the lab rats for all of these foolish decisions and everything that has gone wrong.

I guess I'd hammer my infotainment screen if I'd seen such an ad.

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I think in this particular scenario it's shortsightedness. They see this an instant increase in revenue without considering that longer term this will destroy their ever dwindling market share.

Because no one rewards long-term efforts. You are rewarded for short-term goals and, at best, mid-term ones. In an abstract sense, customers reward you for long-term efforts, but this is something no one will put in an Excel spreadsheet with financial voodoo calculations, except when you are the sole owner of the business.

Could this perverse incentive be rectified in some way? Perhaps by offering much of the compensation in equity that they'd have to hold on to for decades?

> Could this perverse incentive be rectified in some way?

Yes, the companies will slowly disappear into oblivion with competitors (ie: China) gradually eating their launch.

What does China actually do differently in this regard? Is there something we can learn from them?

An overreaching government?

When you ask “how can we be more like China?” you’ve lost 1/2 the chat…

> longer term this will destroy their ever dwindling market share

I'd very much hope so, but I am seeing humanity adapt to and support much worse terms and conditions, under the banner of "Meh.".

Many C*Os plunder the companies they work for, then move to another one. They don't care about the market share of the company they'll leave, no more than bugs care about a tree they are eating. They'll move to the next one. There is always a next tree, until suddenly there are no more trees nearby.

Sales managers and CEOs make sales, get their options then move on.

I have no idea if this is the case here, but one possibility is deliberate coorporate sabotage. Like planting "bad people" on the board or in key positions.

Either by competition or by hedge funds that want to short it into the ground ("cellar boxing").

Just incompetency is another option of course.

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

That's a really great guideline ... if you want to help out malicious people. Not everyone deserves the benefit of the doubt.

Why not

For corpos, I view things the opposite way: Never attribute to stupidity that which is adequately explained by malice.

For corpos, I attribute it to BOTH. They're malicious AND stupid.

Always said with the implication that whatever happened can be "adequately explained by stupidity"...

I like to point out that sufficient stupidity/ignorance can be indistinguishable from malice. Consider it the impact of people living within their bubbles or the result of enormous blindspots.

The fact of the matter is there’s no replacement for a jeep. Not the grand cherokees and other “fake” jeeps but the gladiator and wrangler have no competition in the segment they’re built for. they can get away with a lot for that reason alone.

Nonsense. You just like their particular aesthetic, theres nothing unique a jeep can do that some other car cant.

this response means you don’t understand the benefits of solid axles in off-road situations. one wheel goes up, the other goes down. google “jeep flex” and point to an independent suspension system that does the same.

or admit you don’t know about vehicles.

This is like when audiophiles tell me they can hear the difference with their $50 gold plated connectors.

You're talking about a vanishingly tiny and irrelevant demographic that decides on a car based on placebo and branding.

A car is a thing that gets you from point A to point B.

Like how statism and nationalism is all the same and we could erase every country on the planet without making anyone angry. One-size-fits-all in everything from headphones to car choices to religion to law.

Right???

lol what in the world?

Jeep was bought by Stellantis, so I'm giving Jeep the benefit of the doubt. I imagine this terrible, horrible, no good idea, was their idea. The people with the money rarely come up with the good ideas.

Stellantis is working as a corporations of corporations AFAIK, and they’re free up to a certain degree. However, they have profit targets, and if you fail you’re closed down, again IIRC.

So, tracing that decision is a bit harder than it looks.

didn't their do-nothing CEO, Tavares, just split?

Yes, Tavares resigned recently. Hope they become a better company, but their "Revenue increase program via software enabled cars" and what Jeep did with it doesn't inspire confidence, for now.

I don’t know enough about cars or the Jeep brand, but a common answer to this in the general case is market segmentation. If a company constantly makes decisions that make their product worse for you, you’re probably not the target market.

Perhaps in this case it means Jeep can sell their cars at a lower price. Perhaps Jeep is already perceived as a budget conscious brand. The market segment they’re targeting may care about that.

Kindle does this with their ads. They are targeting a consumer with ~$50 of disposable income to spend on an ebook reader, who would rather pay that little and have ads. I’ll never buy a Kindle because not only do I not want ads on the screen, but they have also neglected their high end device which is the segment of the market where I’m at.

The moment my Remarkable shows me ads is the moment I burn the company to the ground (reputationally).

Not to be too harsh, but most Jeep buyers only buy for the name. That's the only way to justify these Wrangler prices.

It's why Ford was able to bring back the Bronco and take a decent chunk of that pie.

It’s not the name, it’s the solid axles and proven platform.

> Perhaps Jeep is already perceived as a budget conscious brand.

I’d always thought of Jeep as an overpriced brand. There are cheaper off road vehicles available if you don’t care about the brand.

A decade or two ago Wranglers were the cheaper option compared to most pickups. They've been in decline for a while, unfortunately. They seem like fun vehicles.

comparing a jeep to other off road vehicles is not an equal comparison. sure there are other off road capable vehicles but the approach and departure angles, solid axles, disconnecting sway bar, etc.

a tacoma/colorado is not equivalent to a gladiator or wrangler.

Jeep customers fall into 2 categories, generally.

Folks who want a bare bones 4x4 rig

And

People who want a grocery SUV that they can take down a gravel road to a trailhead a few times a year and put ducks on the dash.

Jeep is definitely targeting the latter group here.

Pure speculation: Maybe this is an attempt of 'outrage marketing'?

It is a car. Most people will spend a good chunk of time and research before they buy a car including researching things like maintenance cost, reliability and resale value.

> Most people

Source?

I have a feeling it's opposite. Maybe most people here would do that, but most of the general public? Doubtful.

100% - most people will buy the brand they had before or buy the car because they like how it looks or buy the car because of the price/special financing... probably like 1% of the people will do some serious research, the rest is like "imma pay $850/month, what cool-looking thing can I get for that"

In my surroundings(EU), I see the opposite. Everybody buys their car only after doing serious research. Most people easily swap brands.

For most people, driving comfort (we have more/less kids or aging grandparents, so need a bigger/smaller car) is a primary filter. Next is cost, where people are very aware there is not only the price but also the fuel economy and the maintenance. People know very well the parking spots in the city are limited and polluting cars are not allowed in more and more cities, so also look at small size or good enough eco scores.

There are exceptions: People getting a car from work spend whatever money they can get, and rich people optimizing for status get a BMW or maybe a Tesla.

I, on the contrary, see mostly very rational decisions around me. And the sample is pretty large: coworkers, friends, family.

First, people buy the same brand they had if they were happy with it and the price is sane. That's totally reasonable in my book; and not just for cars.

Those who lease do not care about long term reliability, since they replace cars in 3 years while all major components are under warranty. So they are more likely to try new things. Again, reasonable.

I am sure there are exceptions, but I know of no one who picked a fairly expensive car (and $850 per month is a lot for a car) and started with the budget. My 2c.

> First, people buy the same brand they had if they were happy with it and the price is sane. That's totally reasonable in my book; and not just for cars.

This is pretty much what the person you replied to said, just in a different way.

nah, people will do their research for cars.

median income in the US is still an unimpressive 58k and a reasonably well-maintained used-car would still represent a significant chunk of their income over several years. it's a car culture, and people care about that stuff -- they'll shop around.

as to if they can shop and resist marketing -- different discussion.

Every company I've ever been at I've always worked side by side with people from good universities/pedigree. You'd be shocked at how stupid some people are. In fact, it caused a lot of imposter syndrome in me, like ... how did they make it that far? Are they a fraud? Am I? What is happening here.

I've lost respect for entire institutions, no joke. You literally will not believe some of the people they created.

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